Facebook IPO filed, company aims to raise $5 billion

Social networking company Facebook filed for its initial public offering today, the Washington Post reported. The company seeks to raise $5 billion in funding through the IPO, according to a number used to calculate the registration fee, the New York Times reported.

The $5 billion is less than the $10 billion round of funding that analysts had predicted in recent weeks, the Post reported.

According to the New York Times:

Many close to the company say that Facebook is aiming for a far greater offering that would value it near $100 billion. At that lofty valuation, Facebook would be much bigger than many longer-established American companies, including Abbott Labs, Caterpillar, Kraft Foods, Goldman Sachs and Ford Motor.

Facebook didn’t say how many shares it will offer or how they will be priced, Bloomberg News reported.

The company will take the ticker “FB” for its shares, which will trade on either the Nasdaq Stock Market or the New York Stock Exchange, according to Bloomberg News. Trading of Facebook shares is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2012, the Post reported.

Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Allen & Company will underwrite the IPO, the New York Times reported.

The IPO will boost the bank account of Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, the New York Times reported. Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $6.9 billion when Facebook was valued at a mere $23 billion.

In its filing, Facebook revealed it pulled in $3.7 billion in revenue last year and made a profit of $1 billion, the New York Times reported.

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